


Grief Came Riding

by Alley_Skywalker



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort (sooort of), Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Past Character Death, Post-Canon, implications of Bencutio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:02:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22662190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alley_Skywalker/pseuds/Alley_Skywalker
Summary: Everyone Benvolio loves dies.
Relationships: Benvolio/Escalus (Romeo and Juliet)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	Grief Came Riding

**Author's Note:**

> Bartolomeo I della Scala, who is theorized to be Prince Escalus' historical counterpart, was used as inspiration for the Prince Escalus of this fic's 'verse. Mainly, the fact that he inherited his throne at around 30, only to die four years later at 34. His first name was also borrowed. 
> 
> Title is from "Grief Came Riding" by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.

Everyone Benvolio loves dies. 

He thinks, as he stands at the burial ground beside the polished coffin draped in lush, purple velvet, that he must be cursed and that it would be much better if he never loved anyone and no one loved him. Because all the people who were unfortunate enough to be bound to him in such a way met their end prematurely.

It started with his parents, when he was almost too small to remember. If he closes his eyes, he can still make out some flashes of their existence: his father’s smile, his mother’s soft voice singing a lullaby. He’s told he almost had a sister. But she died, too, before even taking her first breath. But he doesn’t remember that part. He’s grateful for that, and guilty for being grateful. 

Then Mercutio and Romeo, so quickly one after the other that it had been like losing both in one breath, leaving him sick with grief and shock and no desire to live at all. 

Sweet Romeo, who had been more brother than cousin, his heart’s dearest friend. Romeo, who could make him feel loved with a single embrace, who crawled into his bed to comfort him after a nightmare even when they were far too old for such things. Romeo who could make him laugh – _loved_ making him laugh – and always saw the best in people. In Benvolio especially, perhaps far more than he deserved. Yet, Romeo had been too fragile for the world, too full of conviction, breaking before he bent, and there had been nothing Benvolio could do. He could only stand at Romeo’s funeral after, bending like an old weeping willow, wishing he could break too, if only to no longer feel. 

Even in that haze of grief he had felt keenly the absence of his aunt. Romeo had taken her with him, and while she had never replaced Benvolio’s mother, she was the closest thing to a mother figure he had had for most of his life. The full weight of her death had not registered until later, and Benvolio remembers, in haze as though it were a dream, her stroking his cheek as she lay on her deathbed, the light in her eyes going out. He had prayed that night harder than he had for years, without really knowing what or who he was praying for. 

And Mercutio. Not a deeper cut than Romeo, but a different sort of wound. Benvolio thinks he could die and go to hell and still remember the way Mercutio laughed, the way his eyes danced, the way it made Benvolio _feel._ The sparks down his spine and the warmth spilling in his chest, tying his stomach into knots. The simple joy of grabbing Mercutio’s hand as they ran down a maze of coddled streets, making a getaway from the scene of some prank Mercutio had dreamed up. Mercutio, who had made Benvolio feel alive and invincible. Benvolio could have drowned in his eyes. Instead, Mercutio had drowned in a wash of crimson red. 

And now – this. 

“Benvolio?” Valentine touches his shoulder and Benvolio flinches. He’s surprised that he can still feel guilt, that he can still feel anything at all. He knows that the guilt he feels is misplaced and foolish – Valentine had never said a word against him. But somehow Benvolio still feels the self-inflicted shame every time he must face Mercutio’s brother. Because he had dared to move on, dared to try and live again when he’d really had no right. Perhaps this, then, was his punishment. “Do you want to say anything? You should…” Valentine’s voice tapers off as he watched Benvolio’s face. 

Benvolio’s looks up from the coffin to the new Prince. The Prince nods, very minutely, acknowledging his right to speak if he wishes. Benvolio wrings his hands and wonders what he could possibly say. How does he tell without telling? How does he express what it had meant to have hope again when he had just about given up? Now only to see that hope snuffed out just as it had blossomed and bloomed into full light, bringing color into a world that had been bleached to grey. He had known, of course, that he was likely to outlive Bartolomeo – the years between them almost assured that. But it wasn’t supposed to happen _yet._ Not yet, not until they would both be old and grey, at an age when loss becomes commonplace. They were supposed to have gotten more than a few years together. 

Everyone is watching him. Benvolio wonders how many of them understand his true place here. Those who had been particularly close to him or to Bartolomeo perhaps do, or at least suspect. The others? Do they think Bartolomeo was his mentor? That it had been simply an unlikely but not impossible friendship between two men with several years to separate them but plenty of common sorrows to unite them? They are not wrong, but it had been so much more. More than Benvolio would ever dare say. 

How does he explain? 

How does he explain that he had been just barely eighteen, his entire world torn apart, and terribly alone? He had sat on the bridge and watched the dark waters below, wondered if all suicides truly went to hell and whether that was enough to make a difference. He had not expected to be found, certainly not by the Prince of Verona. He had not expected to believe anyone when they said that what happened had not been, by any measure, his fault. Everyone said it, but somehow only Bartolomeo’s kind, regretful eyes, full of sympathy but no pity, made him believe it. 

How does he explain that it had not been anything _lewd_ or even immediate? They walked in the garden, watching the leaves change color, and sat in Bartolomeo’s library as the winter-cold wind howled outside. “Tell me about Mercutio,” Bartolomeo asked, and Benvolio had been taken aback. 

“Was he not your…” Benvolio scrunched up his face, trying to remember if Mercutio had actually ever mentioned how exactly they were related. “Nephew?”

Bartolomeo smiled, a little sadly. “Second cousin. On my mother’s side.”

It is only later Benvolio realizes that if Bartolomeo had wanted to know more about Mercutio, he could have always asked Valentine. The exercise had been more for Benvolio’s sake – to allow him to excise what poison of grief he still carried in unshed tears and pent up memories that no one cared to hear or could really share. (If he had still had Romeo…. But Romeo was gone too.) All that _could_ be excised, anyway. 

How does he explain that kindness had summoned friendship and friendship had grown to a calm sort of love, that at first did not name itself? That, when things came to it, Bartolomeo was the one ashamed and abashed and Benvolio who had been forward and reckless. That they had not been drunk. That kissing and – _well_ – the rest – had simply been a natural extension of the emotional and intellectual intimacy they had grown over what had, otherwise, been the worst year of Benvolio’s life. 

Benvolio doesn’t know how to put all of that into acceptable words. Into any words at all. He had simply allowed himself to love again and it had ended—well, the same as before. He’s too used to grief now, too immune to it. He had wept at Mercutio’s funeral. He had been so out of his mind with pain and guilt and regret at Romeo’s that he had not been able to speak to anyone. He had gone through the motions while hardly registering where he was and what he was doing. Now, at least, he’s mostly functional. 

“Maybe it’s best I don’t,” he says softly to Valentine, swallowing past the lump in his throat. “I didn’t prepare anything…” 

Valentine traces his fingers lightly over Benvolio’s shoulder and down his arm. It makes Benvolio shiver. Valentine doesn’t look much like Mercutio, but they did share some of the same gestures and small physical tics. It’s not a reminder Benvolio needs just at the moment. 

Instead of saying anything, he walks over to the casket and stands beside it for a moment in silence. Bartolomeo’s face is unnaturally pale, standing out starkly against the deep purples his body is shrouded in. But he looks peaceful. More so, somehow, than either Mercutio or Romeo had. Benvolio forces himself to breathe. For the last time he takes in Bartolomeo’s face – the high forehead, the sturdy jawline, the dark hair framing his face. It’s not the same like this – it was always his eyes Benvolio had loved most. 

He leans down and places a feather-light kiss on Bartolomeo’s forehead. Just to say goodbye. 

He’s too old and too weary this time to care what anyone thinks. 

After, Valentine walks beside him as they leave the cemetery. “Will you be alright?” he asks. “If you want, you can come stay with me tonight. To not, you know…be lonely.”

Benvolio smiles gratefully at him. He doesn’t really know why Valentine keeps making these overtures at friendship. Perhaps it’s some abiding sense of loyalty to his brother’s memory. Perhaps something else. Benvolio tries to not think about it too much. “Thank you, but no, I’ll be fine.” It’s not that he dislikes Valentine’s company. It’s that he likes it too much, and Valentine doesn’t deserve the fate of everyone else Benvolio has loved. 

“Are you sure?”

He is and Valentine leaves him to wander alone down to the river. He sits once again on the bridge and watches the water below, the slow rise and fall of the waves. No one is coming to save him this time. But this time, he doesn’t think he’ll need it. 

He’s getting used to the grief after all. 

One day, perhaps, he’ll start getting used to the loneliness too.


End file.
